In the financial industry often times trading desks at a bank will include multiple people who trade the same types of equities or securities (“Traders”). These Traders tend to be located in close physical proximity to one another and will often participate in the same conference calls. However, even though they are in close physical proximity to one another, rather than using a hand held receiver or a headset, these Traders will oftentimes use their speakerphones. Additionally, these speakerphones are typically set to volumes that far exceed the background and room noise so that the Traders can hear the information being communicated. Because of the close physical proximity of the various speakerphones that are each transmitting and receiving the same information, when a Trader in the room speaks it can cause disruptive issues.
Some of the disruptive issues may include:    1. Audio delay introduced by the system.    a) When a Trader hears a repeat of his/her own voice within a few milliseconds it will typically not be perceived as a problem nor cause a disruption. However, as the audio delay increases there is a point at which the Trader who is speaking will perceive his/her own voice as what may be described as “echo” or “reverb” and it will disrupt the ability of that Trader to speak and increase listener fatigue.    b) When a Trader speaks on a communication channel that is shared by other Traders in close proximity, there will be people in the room who will hear that Trader's voice directly rather than through the communication channel. Those who are close enough to hear the Trader speak without the conference call will hear the Trader's voice at least two times, once through the direct medium of air and then at least a second time through the speakerphone(s); including early reflections and reverberations. The audio broadcasting from the speakerphone(s) will be a delayed version of the sound travelling through the direct medium and include reverberation. As the audio delay exceeds 20 msec and volume increases, as with many open speaker communication systems, the people who hear the Trader's actual voice will perceive it as “echo” and it will impair the ability of those who are trying to listen to what is being said, as well as make it harder for those who are trying to ignore it.    2. Reverberation    a) When a Trader speaks on a communication channel that is broadcast through speakerphones which are in close proximity to the Trader, the Trader's voice will reflect off of surfaces in the room and can make its way through multiple paths back to the Trader's microphone. That reflected voice is then retransmitted to all speakerphones on the call. This in effect increases the reverberation time and effects both the Trader who is speaking and the listeners' ability to listen to or ignore the conversation.    3) Feedback Howling    a) Speakerphones in close proximity to other speakerphones on a common call are subject to a ringing that can build to a sustained and very disruptive howl due to the feedback between the various speakerphones. The howl will prevent participants in the conference call from using the channel.
It would thus be advantageous to create a system of speakerphones which are aware of other speakerphones within close proximity so that when they are attached to a common communication channel and a person speaks into one speakerphone the remaining speakerphones modify access to the communication channel to minimize one or more of the above disruptive issues. It would be advantageous to create a system of speakerphones that could be manually configured to know which other speakerphones are within close proximity. It would be advantageous to create a system of speakerphones that could be automatically configured to know when other speakerphones connected to a common communication channel are within close proximity.